It looks like this is finally the year. The year where my quick February look at FIFA turns into a longer, rest-of-the-year look. It was always going to happen one year.
If Tuesday’s obsession with beating the Team of the Week is anything to go by, I’m hooked.
FIFA13 has rolled up and snatched me away. I’m shaping up to be like Donald Sutherland, seen reacting here as he meets the last PES player on Earth.
I spent my entire session playing the same match over and over. My team of modest Silvers, against the FIFA Ultimate Team Team of the Week, on World Class difficulty.
That’s the clincher: World Class difficulty. The early stages on Ultimate Team using the default difficulty settings are not competitive at all. Turn up, press some buttons, win some Coins, rinse, repeat. Yawn.
Changing difficulty changes the whole game. Some of these matches, I didn’t even have a shot. I never got close to actually winning any of them.
I played them eight times, lost seven times, and drew the eighth. I scored two goals in eight. By late last night, no Coins were being awarded for any of the matches. Presumably the TotW expires or is limited in some way.
Okay, so playing one-off match over and over inside a concept mode is a very long way from the rigours of Master League.
But right now, I feel like doing what I’m doing and nothing else.
I ran out of Contracts a few matches into my assault at the Team of the Week. I scurried back to the main UT menu and spent all my Coins on new Contracts. 350 for four Silvers, and a couple of Bronzes at 150. I was like a slot machine addict. I restored my team to its tip-top shape, and got stuck in again.
And still couldn’t win. I soon ran out of contracts again, but couldn’t stand the thought of wasting five minutes going back and getting some more.
So I dug down into the depths of my Club, snatching up some players who’ve never played a minute for me.
‘C’ Team players. Any nationality, any formation. “Can you play? You’re in!”
This is the near-the-bottom-of-the-barrel team that I sent out to play against the Team of the Week on World Class difficulty:
That RM hasn’t had a game for me since the very first day of Ultmate Team. Called out of retirement with a few buddies, what did he do for me?
My Chemistry dropped to about 55, and it showed.
This was the soundest thrashing you ever did see. The CPU didn’t just beat me. It totally whupped me. Possession was the only thing I ‘won’ in this match:
Ultimate Team incentivises you to keep playing properly right to the end of every match, as it awards bonus Coins for goals, and deducts Coins the more goals you concede.
Check the heatmap of the two teams’ shots—the blue dots are my shots, the green ones are the AI’s.
What strikes me about the FIFA13 AI is how prone it is to trying decent potshots from range, as well as the tippy-tappy-turny stuff from close in.
I did have some opportunities that I worked around the box, but they always seemed to break down at the last.
So back I went for more contracts. I locked down all my top players with Contracts, but had to pick a Bronze no-name, Diego Anton, at CF. Decent pace, but not much else going for him.
This time I defended so determinedly that you could have used my jaw as a ruler to draw straight lines with.
0-0 it was, and 0-0 it looked like ending. There’s no extra time or penalties in the TotW challenge. You either win in 90 minutes, or you don’t.
In the last seconds of added-on time, that striker-for-a-day, Diego Anton, burst into space on the edge of the box with the ball.
I love the right-stick in FIFA, and tapped it twice to knock the ball out of his feet and get away from the covering defender. This was the moment. The chance for me to finally win the match I’d gone all Moby Dick about. The chance for Diego Anton to become a club legend instantly. Diego Anton must score!
I gave up after that. Maybe I’ll beat the next Team of the Week. In the meantime, I’ve got a Season to complete, and Division 2 to head for.
Unlucky!! Was a good enough shot, the keepers in FIFA can be scarily too good, several one on ones that Id have slammed home in PES and left the keeper belly flopping about like a trod on Salmon, have been last ditch finger tipped round the post or stopped with shins by FIFA keepers.
In PES you almost feel as if the keeper is there because its mandatory you field one, whereas in FIFA, the keepers are often the match winners.
Finished my current offline season on FIFA last night, won the Div 3 title and got promoted to Div 2, where the prize is 7000 coins. Nice!!!
I had 2000 coins piled up due to my Div 3 triumph so needed a few fitness cards and a few contracts cards before I could start Div 2, and here’s where UT may have come to a nasty end for me. ……..
I went into the auction house and bought 3 fitness cards and 4 contracts cards, then when it came to assigning them to my consumables pile so they can be used, i got the following error: “The Auction house is experiencing problems, this may be due to it being extremely busy, please try again later, sorry for the inconvenience”.
So i was unable to equip any of the cards I just purchased, and therefore could not field a team that met the entry requirements.
For 20 mins I quit Ultimate team, went back in, tried again….. still got the error.
So in the end I quit UT altogether and played a few friendlies.
Its shit like this that I cannot tolerate, dont have the time to mess about and may just see me quit UT if it happens again anytime soon.
N-G – Blimey, I was on the edge of my seat there. After all that frustration I was sure we were going to see a Rocky-style win against all the odds. Good save – too good maybe?
Having beat TotW at the very first attempt (smug) I do wonder if it had something other than just my godlike gaming skills that got me that result. I really am a very average player – less than average at Fifa maybe. My attempt was with an all Silver team that I sent out for its very first match. I’d been using Bronze up to then. Either that or I just got very, very lucky. A dodgy penalty and lots of defending and passing also helped of course.
NG – ahh it brought back memories that link…excellent film..I freak out the Mrs doing that every now and again..usually results in a twisted nipple but its worth it.
Saw PES 2010 for 99p the other day..tempted i was
Paul—the ‘busy auction house’ message used to plague me before I did the port forwarding, but I’ve only seen it once since. If you’re not getting disconnected from the games themselves you haven’t got port problems so I doubt it’s that. I was on the verge of quitting UT and probably FIFA13 during the period the connection issues were costing me. While you’re not playing on higher difficulties you’re probably not really connected with the game yet, so this could go either way for you I think.
Does anyone place much credence in the trading websites? I have just checked out my latest (300 on Xbox) purchase Jonatan Maidana (I needed a cheap Argentinian CB who played in Argentina)
Xbox PS3 PC
Futwiz 527 380 700
Ultimatedb 670 325 325
FUThead 753 513 458
The prices seem to vary wildly.
NG – I have all my ports open that FIFA needs as per the Port forward website, also have dynamic port allocation on so that if any game needs a port and pings it, the router will automatically open it.
I also have a 75MB per sec fibre Optic connection, I never get d/c from games or suffer any lag between menus etc, its just the auction house, therefore EA’s servers, totally unacceptable when i cant use 6 cards I’ve just brought and renders the mode unplayable.
You’d think for a mode that earned EA over 80million quid last year, they’d invest in some load capacity bearing servers.
FUTWIZ is by far the most reliable website, i wouldnt use ultimatedb, its very flakey
And the prices do vary alot between platforms, ie, PS3 vs XBOX
Also buying packs other than bronze for a quick but small profit is pointless, all they are is a profit vehicle for EA, you will only find a decent player or card in there in 1 out of every 50 packs. They are solely designed to fuel the auction house.
John—the TotW was so superior to my Silver team in so many ways on World Class that I don’t know what you were on when you beat them at the first time of asking.
Chris99—I don’t know enough about UT or the market to judge.
Paul—when I said you’re not connected with the game yet, I meant emotionally/spiritually, because you insist on playing on Amateur so you can win 10-0 all the time and rake in all the lovely Coins that you love so much
Do EA make any profit on the trade in Coins? I suppose tangentially, they do—the Coins system is throttled in such a way that enough players will eventually spend real cash to get ahead that bit quicker.
*bites lip* don’t think I’ve played a single game on Amateur, in fact last night 2 professional games and a world class game and still unbeaten, so up yours
EA take 5% on any coin expenditure, and a lot, i mean a lot, of people pay real cash for coins, where do you think £80 million in revenue comes from.
It was the variation between sites for the same platform that I thought was odd.
On the theme of a ‘Carry On XI’ from the last thread I have just be looking for a good 4-2-3-1 manager and came up with a Russian called Slutskiy
Paul—how can EA make real money on taking 5% of Coins from a Coins transaction? Apart from it functioning as a gateway drug type of thing, I mean.
If you didn’t touch the pre-match settings, you’ll have played some of the Division 5 matches on Amateur. I know you’re on Pro/WC now, don’t worry…
Chris99 – yep he plays alongside Pulyanickasovski
Oh the humanity
I’m heading into town for lunch shortly and it’s all I can do to not pickup FIFA immediately.
I have a friend who can make you crave a particular food item just by describing it – a rare and almost supernatural talent.
You seem to have this gift in spades. God help my expanding waistline if you ever start a food blog.
EA make money on the purchasing of FIFA points from the PSN or XBL platforms, and also apply a 5% deduction to any coins you gain from auctions etc, i don’t know what exactly they do with this virtual 5% of virtual currency but its fact. The you have the UT season pass, which goes for 20 quid a pop.
Check the leaderboards within UT, 70% of the top 100 gamers in UT have season passes, as shown by an icon next to their name. It all adds up.
Whenever I was given an amateur level Div 5 game, I upped it to Semi-Pro, so haven’t actually ever played on amateur level, Semi-Pro was too easy, clinched the Div 3 title last night with a 5-0 win on Semi-pro.
Chris – i’m now imagining a chefs hat above a newlook blog front page.
NG did/did not help matters with putting the seed of Fifa in me noggin
Chris—caveat emptor, of course, caveat emptor.
Paul—I’m not disputing that the 5% thing is a reality, just wondering how EA makes real money from it, and I can’t see how they do except indirectly through influencing the size and shape of the overall Coins economy.
The 5% thing must be a method of controlling the amount of Coins in the virtual economy, which directly ties into how likely/unlikely any given player is to fork out real cash for the FIFA points. There’ll be complex graphs somewhere illustrating it all, no doubt. A slight tweak to the formula that sees EA skimming 7.5%, say, of the made-up currency, would lead to a proportionate increase in the uptake of FIFA Points, but with a corresponding downtick of disgruntled people (unwilling to pay real money) either quitting completely or playing infrequently.
There has to be enough Coins in the economy to stimulate a reasonable level of gameplay for the non-spenders, while also prompting others to spend cash. And don’t they spend it! There’s a sweet spot and EA have definitely hit it. I’ve been part of a virtual economy before when I played EVE Online for a year, and it was much the same as this. The men in suits know exactly what they’re doing, make no mistake.
I think you’re probably bang on with your guestimation of how it all works. I was speaking to someone that has over a million coins and trades in coins on ebay and he was saying that the packs are a money generator and are worthless to the buyer, so I’m sure EA have some complex laboratory with a gang of Bryan Cox like mad scientists working out the ultimate formula for a thriving economy.
encouraging to see that AI shooting heat map. Brilliant though FIFA12 was, I sometimes got a bit bored of the AI attacking play, which always seemed to involve them wriggling and weasling themselves to the edge of the 6 yard box for a tap in
erm ….. *cough* …. that isnt actually a heat map, its a plot map ….. this is a heat map: http://www.geo.me/gallery2/images/1a.png
where the hotter the colour the higher the value.
just jesting, being picky, only cause i used to design heat maps for crime analysis
Paul – Are you gonna star in CSI Fifa/PES?..sorry couldnt resist
Paul—plot map… It was one of those tip of the tongue moments wher I knew ‘heatmap’ wasn’t quite right.
haha im just messing anyway….. couldnt give a monkeys what you call it.
just had a right result, the girlfriend emailed me at work saying she was off into town at lunch did i want anything, I joking said I need a new dualshock controller, expecting id get ‘a what… ?’ kinda reply.
Well she just mailed me saying she got me the new ltd edition metallic red one from Game and had the points put on my card. Bonus.
Werd – Gill Grissom-Coynborough-Castolo
abbeyhill—yes, the AI has a go at some really unlikely 35-yard rockets. Some of which look like they’re going in and really scare you. One of the 3-0 defeats I took yesterday featured a close-range header, a penalty, and a 30-yard rocket into my top corner where the AI player ran onto a square pass and thwacked it sweetly first-time.
Paul—if your new DualShock is like all the others I’ve ever bought, have fun opening the pack… Is there a way of opening those boxes that doesn’t involve carving them open with sharp scissors?!
Just had a nice little touch on UT trading. Bought Tom Cleverly for 350 and then flogged him straight out again for 800. Nice. *This post is to be read in Del Boy Trotter/ Ray Winstone kind of voice*
John—that’s textbook trading right there. I was reading a popular guide and it’s the recommended method. Buy only Gold English/Spanish/Italian players (who play in any of those countries’ leagues), as cheaply as possible, and sell for as much profit as possible. (The method targets new UT players who just want to Buy Now their favourite player.) You made over 100% profit there. Repeat that enough times per day with many more cards and the exponential growth factor means that this time next week, you’ll be a Coins millionaire. Or near enough.
I’ve just checked and none of my own experiments in this vein have sold yet
The way to instantly generate coins is ………………..
just joking. i wont disclose. *and i haven’t used the method even once myself either, excluding the trial to see if it worked*
Blister packs – retailers answer to shoplifting items from flimsy packaging, and also a danger to anyone that ever has to open one.
Cutting across the whole top with scissors is the safest bet, I may even design a product and go on Dragons den that is a blister pack opener!!!
Paul- tee hee Captian Brass Blowed, well jel of ya. I love new Dual Shock Pads. Apart from my old red one…the sticks feel too tight. I dont know if thats because of lack of use or the sticks on the newer dualshocks are like that anyway.May try it on Friday
NG – tell me about it..I was pining at my sealed pad one christmas, hermetically sealed and no scissors to be had at my in laws..I tried keys…a table knife…
Paul—if the method is that reliable, leading to a guaranteed 500 Coins a pop for (presumably) just a couple of presses of a button, why isn’t it widely known and talked about? Why do all the guides and Philosophies of Trading exist? Answer in general terms only, please—I don’t want to know about the method, if it exists…
Paul/NG – a few days ago I was browsing YouTube and saw a video of a guy opening some gold packs and filming it to see what he got. He did get a few good cards but the thing that astonished me was he was spending a shed load of real money on them, at one point he even refers to the fact he could have bought a new game for what he’s just done. I don’t get this at all – surely it’s all about building a team and fighting for points, deciding whether to buy that much needed contract or potential bargain player. EA must love guys like him as they’ll never be satisfied. I won’t spend a farthing of proper coinage, that way a real pannini sticker addiction lies.
Werd Llitrah—there was one DualShock in my late PS1 era, the first one I think I ever bought, before I knew that the best/only way to open them was the cut-across-with-scissors method, where it took me literally half an hour of sweating, groaning struggle to make a dent in the thing.
Uncle Turf—I don’t get it either. In Master League terms, it’d be as if instead of playing the seasons, finding the players, learning about them, experiencing all the stories etc., you pay instantly to have them all at the start. Or in film terms, paying to have someone tell you at the start of the movie who Keyzer Soze is. Etc. It misses the point, which is to experience a narrative. I think online competitiveness among friends has a lot to do with people’s willingness to spend money here and in other, similar online games.
I’ve turned my first profit—quite a good one. Following more advice found online (target the much-sought-after cards), I searched for Team Formation and Training cards min. bid 500/max. bid 900, and won one—a Team Training—for 850 Coins. Put it on sale immediately for 1100 bid/1500 Buy Now — and it sold at the 1500 Buy Now price within half an hour. Now I’m thinking: has someone done to me what I did to the first seller? Is that card on sale right now for an even higher price? What am I doing with my life? These are the questions.
The balls up I spoke of – I listed a 4-5-1 card for 150/200 as it was in a mass of crappy coach/bronze cards. It sold before I’d even listed the next card. Not a loss but a lost profit certainly.
Uncle Turf—more Trading lore: there are real people who will sit and methodically page through the auction screens until they get to the 1st minute of the 1st hour, just to find mistaken postings like your formation card and snap them up IMMEDIATELY. Posting a valuable card at rock-bottom prices is a common enough mistake that everybody does it at some point, and so it’s to be worthwhile for those who can be bothered pressing R1 for that long. Presumably bots live up there at the top of the hour as well.
A mate of mine once spent his weeks wages on gold packs! Insanity. But 80 million smackeroos every year shows how many suckers are out there
Disaster! Re-gen Sibon has chosen to join ‘Gharnetova’ rather than my team! All hope is lost
Rare managers stored in the Club do indeed count towards contracts. I had 4 gold ones (=12%) and when I played a +10 contract card last night the player increased by 11 contracts.
It’s been slow at work today, so I thought I’d start the ‘Carry On FUTting XI’
GK Bum Young
LB Alcock (even though he’s really an RB)
CB Shittu
CB Umtiti
RB Fanni
CDM Bender
CM Kums
LW Arshavin
ST Bent
ST Dong
RW Bum
Just fired up pes2010 for a quick look and i like it already, twenty or so decent tunes on the menus. How did we end up with the garbage on pes2012/13? The recession must be hitting konami hard!!!!
Chris99 – please tell me you’re not a member of the emergency services/heart surgeon/air traffic controller – that’s a disgraceful amount of time on your hands!
abbeyhill – Sibon is only the poor man’s Ribeiro! It’s the big Brazilian for 2012 success I tell you. (It’s also annoying that there is so little transfer input in 2012 that you could do nothing to prevent that move by Sibon).
turf – oh dear it’s not looking good then. I never got much out of Ribeiro, even headers, and released him. Might be approaching time to admit defeat with PES2012
chris99 – fantastic! I was chuckling to myself when I encountered Bender playing for Valenciennes the other night, he was massive
Ribeiro will always be in Sibons shadow.
Uncle Turf – Don’t worry, I’m only a government food inspector. I was meant to be testing an abattoir at the back of Newmarket racecourse yesterday, but I couldn’t be bothered. I’m sure it’ll be fine.
Actually it took a surprisingly small amount of thanks to the search in futwiz.com\lite. Most of the time was spent deciding if I should attack with a Bent Dong or favour a Goodwillie instead.